A friend of mine told me that if you run at a sprint for a short amount of time (like a 10 minute sprint).. the body needs resources urgently, and will burn the muscle instead of the fat stores..

he says it is better to run at a moderate speed (jog) for a longer duration..as this will make the body uses the fat stores since it wont feel an urgent need to burn the muscle.

Because of what he said, I changed my cardio routine to where I run longer (48 minutes as opposed to 20) and at a slower pace ( I peak at 5.0 miles/hr on my new routine, but would hit 6.0 miles/hr on my older one).

I don't have the link to the them anymore, but a series of studies was recently done in Canada that proved HIIT was as good or better than long-duration medium-to-low intensity cardio, and did not negatively effect muscle mass. That's 15-20 minute of intervals though, not straight sprinting.

The 10 minutes of sprinting in question is a moot issue to me since I could never do that.

I don't have the link to the them anymore, but a series of studies was recently done in Canada that proved HIIT was as good or better than long-duration medium-to-low intensity cardio, and did not negatively effect muscle mass. That's 15-20 minute of intervals though, not straight sprinting.

The 10 minutes of sprinting in question is a moot issue to me since I could never do that.

and it gives sample HIIT workouts for beginner, intermediate, advanced..

Do you guys think the beginner one is a good one to start off with? I think I would probably fall on my face if I sprinted for 10 minutes.. (I assume by sprint you mean running almost at full capacity ..maybe 80-90%)..

Ceaze.. what happens after Week 8.. do I just keep bumping up the number of iterations? For example, for Good Shape Week 9..would that 60s jog,30s fast, x 10? So basically after 8 weeks..u bump down the iterations for recovery?

thanks, i know what cardio is. currently i jog or bike, but i wanted to start hiit to try to help lose more fat. so i was asking for an explanation of what exactly this chart is saying.

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The chart is saying you are in good shape if you can do this, or if you want to be in good cardiovascular shape do like this, which is to train your heart and lungs, you can still have fat on you.

If you want to loose fat, you should just do some aerobic exercise for a long time.

To burn the glucogen you have, sprint or weightlift, this is anaerobic exercise, which uses your stores of pure energy. After sprinting a couple of times, or weightlifting like three sets, your body will start using fat for energy, which is a slower energy form for your body but it gives alot of energy per unit of fat, which is an aerobic exercise, therefore then start walking or jogging for abour 3 hours. It takes time to burn fat, you wont burn it when sprinting of just weightlifting, you have to walk or jog for a long time afterwards.